


Unexpected Hero

by grimcognito



Category: Toy Story 3 (2010)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:05:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimcognito/pseuds/grimcognito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In their time of need, the toys are rescued by the last person they'd expect. And alternate ending to Toy Story 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected Hero

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a prompt on the Disney_Kink Livejournal meme.
> 
> Standard Diclaimers Apply. I do not Own Toy Story or any of the licensed characters. This is a piece of fan-made work that makes no profit.

Sid slouched back in the chair, bored out of his mind. Just two more hours before his shift was over, and then he could head home to finish up on the latest repairs for his newest resident; an antique tin soldier who’d been tossed out like old trash. Sid had picked him up from the pile of recyclables on his latest run. All the little guy needed was a bit of rust remover and his springs tightened.

Sid sat up and leaned forward, letting his gaze wander over the massive avalanche of trash bits rolling toward the incinerator when he spotted the toys, all strung together and in one piece. They were still moving, Sid realized with a jolt, and they were about to be melted alive.

He jumped to his feet, fear and adrenaline pumping through his veins as he slammed his fist into the emergency shut off button, halting all activity and activating the cooling systems. He only had a few minutes at most before someone noticed the machines had gone silent and would come to investigate, and Sid really couldn’t afford to lose this job. He snatched a bucket kept for the leaky roof and ran down the back stairs to the authorized personnel door leading into the main incinerator room.

Carefully stepping his way across the mounds of debris, he divided his concentration between reaching the toys and trying not to slip in the loose piles and fall to a very unpleasant death. He made it to them after what seemed like forever, drenched in sweat and panting from the heat.

Not bothering to take too close a look, he scooped up the whole line of them and tossed them in the bucket. He paused for a moment to make sure he hadn’t left any behind and glared down into the bucket at the little red-headed cowgirl lying on the top of the pile, “Is that everyone?”

She didn’t respond—not surprising, but also pretty fucking irritating right now—and he shook the bucket, trying again in a sterner voice, “Hey cowgirl, I don’t exactly have time to screw around here, is that everyone?”

She blinked and looked at him, sitting up when he just furrowed his eyebrows instead of screaming. He growled, knowing that it was a shock to the toys when they didn’t have to act around him, but he was running on borrowed time right now. “Well?”

Still looking unsure, she finally spoke, “I-I, I , uh…”

“Spit it out, Red.”

“A dinosaur—a T-Rex. Bright green.”

Thank God, finally! He rooted around the trash heap, digging until he struck a solid plastic shape, “Green. Green, green, greeeen—got ‘im!”

Without another wasted second, he dropped the dinosaur into the bucket and made his cautious way back to the door. He hurried back to the control room and restarted all of the machines. Sliding the bucket under the control booth with a hissed, “Keep quiet,” he plopped back into his chair and snuck a peek at the clock.

Two hours and forty-five minutes until his shift was done, his sweat was staring to dry, making him itch all over, and he was pretty sure he’d just gotten a new tan from the damned heat, but it was worth it. Well, he figured as he sniffed at his underarm and winced, it would be once he got himself a nice, long shower.

…………………

When he got home to his ratty little apartment, Sid tipped the bucket out onto the couch and wandered off to take a shower, not bothering to examine the toys yet. They probably wouldn’t respond anyway until the others explained what was going on, which was a hell of a lot easier than trying to convince them to talk by himself.

He took a while in the shower, the only upside to this crappy complex was the endless hot water, and climbed out when he was good and pruny. He could hear voices coming from his main room and figured it was as good a time as any to make his official greeting.

His usual rehearsed spiel died on his tongue, though, once he set his eyes on the new toys—more specifically, the two that seemed to be in charge and asking all the questions. A cowboy and a spaceman, looking exactly as he remembered them, the way they had looked in his nightmares, haunting him for years.

He made a choked noise and they turned his way. The cowboy took a step toward him and Sid stumbled back, slamming into a wall in his haste. “Oh no. Oh, fuck no! Stay the hell away from me!”

The cowboy paused, looking alarmed, then his eyes narrowed in though before his jaw dropped open in shock. “Sid?”

The spaceman went from worried to pissed in a second as he recognized the name and started advancing menacingly toward Sid. Sid slid to the carpet and curled up with his forehead pressed to his knees, “I didn’t do anything wrong! Leave me the fuck alone!”

He held his breath, waiting for whatever might come next, dreading the idea that they might turn all of the toys against him, like they did before. When nothing happened, he peeked past his knees and blinked, not believing his own eyes.

All of the toys he’d taken in over the years, all the one’s he’d repaired and that had decided to stay, were circled around him, hands, claws, and robotic pinchers linked to make a wall between him and the new toys. They were protecting him, against their own kind.

No one had ever stood up for him before and he didn’t know what to do about the warm knot in his chest. A stuffed bear he’d found, the one with a missing eye that he’d sewn a pirate eye-patch on, turned to give him a nod, and he whispered a quiet, “Thank you.”

The spaceman looked angry, standing in front of the toy barrier as he yelled, “Why are you protecting him? Don’t you know what he’s done to his own innocent toys? He needs to be stopped!”

The cowboy stepped up beside him, “Buzz is right. We’ve seen how sadistic Sid can be, and there are things a toy should never have to go through.”

Sid’s protectors didn’t budge, but they did respond. The boxy robot that had leaking batteries when Sid found him lit up and beeped angrily while the others came to Sid’s defense, all yelling over each other until a partially melted G.I. Joe held up a hand for silence. He was the one all of the toys listened to, and was the first toy that Sid had rescued.

The G. I. Joe waited for silence, then met the cowboy and spaceman—Buzz, according to the cowboy—glare for matching glare. “I don’t know what this young man’s done in the past, and I don’t need to know, because he’s not that boy anymore. The Sid you knew is gone, and I won’t stand here and let you badmouth the one person willing to help out an old, outdated toy like me.

“I wouldn’t be more than a mess of melted plastic in the back of some warehouse if it weren’t for Sid. He caught me after my first boy decided that playing pretend just wasn’t good enough and that parachuting off a building was only fun if I was on fire.”

The two toys looked horrified, and Joe continued, “Sid caught me and threw me in a puddle, asking if I was alright and telling me he knew I could talk. He took me home and has been the best kid I’ve ever had, so you’d do well to watch your words.”

The toys, all of the ones he’d brought back in the bucket, looked stunned. The cowboy looked at the rest of Sid’s toys, “Is that true? He helped all of you?”

The resident toys nodded, and a little Lego construction worker spoke up, “He saved all of us from the landfill, fixed us up and gave us a home.”

The cowboy thought to himself for a moment before nodding decisively, “Alright then,” he held up a hand when Buzz tried to protest. “If you’ve really changed, then maybe you can help us.”

Sid eyed him warily, “Help you how?”

The cowboy smiled up at him, “We trying to find our way back to Andy.”

Seemed simple enough, and Sid wouldn’t have to worry about them coming after him in his sleep if Andy took them back. As long as they didn’t end up back at the dump. “Okay. I’ll help you if you promise to leave me and my friends alone. If you can do that, you’ve got yourself a deal, Cowboy.”

Sid stretched out a hand and the cowboy clasped his finger in a handshake, sealing the deal. “The name’s Woody. Woody Pride.”

…………………

Andy was busy shoving the last of his clothes into his college box when his phone rang, vibrating on his desk. He checked the number but didn’t recognize it, so he answered just in case it was from his new school or something. The voice at the other end of the line was one he hadn’t expected to ever hear again after high school, “Hey, Andy, it’s Sid.”

“Sid? What’s up? You’ve never called before.” Not that it was for a lack of trying, but Sid and Andy hung out in different circles and he never really managed to catch him for long enough.

He’s started crushing on Sid years ago, and hard, because the Sid that beat him up as a kid and the Sid he ran into in high school were different as night and day. Sure, he was still gruff and dressed like a punk, but it was all a thick skin for his mushy, good-natured center.

Andy had seen Sid help out other kids against bullies, and the way he carried the G. I. Joe action figure that he thought no one knew about everywhere he went. Andy’s heart hadn’t stood a chance against that. Too bad Sid never seemed to notice him. “Hey, Andy. You still there?”

Andy jumped at the sound of Sid’s voice, embarrassed that he’d zoned out, “Yeah, sorry, I was thinking. What did you need?”

“Right. Well, I found a bunch of toys with your name on ‘em while doing my rounds, and I was wondering if you knew they’d been tossed. I saved them for you if you want to pick ‘em up.”

Andy nearly dropped his phone, “They were in the trash!? They were supposed to go to the attic! Oh, man, thank you so much for saving them. If you give me your address, I’ll come by and pick them up right away.”

Sid rattled off the number and street of his apartment and Andy scribbled it down on the post-it notes his mom had left for labeling. “Thanks again. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“No problem, man. Later.”

Sid hung up and Andy stared down at his cell phone. There was no way it was a coincidence, because what were the chances of his long-time crush finding his toys out of all the trash pick-ups he did? It was like fate, and Andy wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.

He was going to ask Sid out—after he got his toys back of course, just in case Sid took it badly. His college wasn’t that far away, so he could drive down for dates if Sid said yes—and boy, did Andy hope he’d say yes—but first, he needed to have a word with his mother about what most definitely was not trash.


End file.
